


Through the Roofs and Gables

by stars_inthe_sky



Category: Beauty and the Beast (1991), Beauty and the Beast (2017), Disney Princesses
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Bed & Breakfast, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bed & Breakfast, Character Study, Disney, Disney Movies, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-12-31 18:05:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12138102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stars_inthe_sky/pseuds/stars_inthe_sky
Summary: Instead of shutting away the world, the Beast opens a bed and breakfast.





	Through the Roofs and Gables

**Author's Note:**

  * For [red_b_rackham](https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_b_rackham/gifts).



> Thank you to [Red](http://archiveofourown.org/users/red_b_rackham), who told me to publish this odd little thing _and_ fixed my typos.

He hears what the Enchantress says, but it makes no sense at first—which is somehow worse than if it did. Her message is clear soon enough, though, because he may have paws and an uncannily good sense of smell now, but evidently he was always like this: quick to anger and rage, bellowing and brutal.

Staring at himself in a mirror that hardly contains his wide visage, it’s easy to forget that he loved every book in his library and would take his servants’ children to play in the snow. But he _can’t_ quite forget—even though, with these new hands, he can’t turn the pages of a book without tearing them.

So, he sets out to break the curse, because for all of the silver linings of his new body, he still wants the old one back. And he may be a spoiled, selfish princeling, but even he can recognize the cruelty of turning innocent people into clocks and kettles.

Still, the question remains, ringing in his ears: who could ever learn to love a beast?

 _No one_ , he concludes, not when the horns and fangs and claws simply represent who he was already. Is still, perhaps.

But he’s also a prince—used to getting his way and educated in how to get it—so he concocts a backup plan. Having been cursed for not extending hospitality to someone who asked for it, the Beast decides the way through this trial is to open his home to any and everyone. He’s determined not to hoard his resources anymore—magical, hereditary, or otherwise. Not if the price of doing so was everything else.

And if he’s meant to be forgotten by the world until he can will the impossible to happen, well, at least he can try to find a workaround.

After all, the castle’s larder apparently replenishes itself, and, though the staff isn’t human, they’re perfectly capable of serving; waiting on him now isn’t quite the full-time distraction it used to be, especially now that none of them need to eat or sleep. There’s a wealth of space, both indoors and out—something he’s never appreciated so much as he now does, when staying in the tower makes him feel so acutely and literally like an animal in a cage. The eternal winter on the grounds is a bit strange, but it doesn’t prevent anyone from traveling. And it isn’t like he, or his people, need much of an income at the moment.

Thus, the Beast opens a bed-and-breakfast.

***

It takes time to work out the kinks, to shift his people from serving one man to serving many while remaining unseen, to make the place welcoming rather than imposing, to make the master comfortable with his decision to let so many strangers invade his home, so soon after just one had wrecked such havoc upon it.

The staff, in all their unasked-for strangeness, is hardly more excited to engage with skittish visitors than the Beast is, but caring for an ongoing assortment of strangers is at least something to do. So they manage, and everyone appreciates his push to break the curse; even if they doubt his success with this particular effort, they know he hasn’t given up on them.

No one can say he’s not as stubborn as a bull. He even has the horns for it now.

Thus, the mysteriously empty castle becomes a mysteriously hospitable place to whatever travelers happen to pass through. Soon enough, they’ve got guests most nights. They’re not often full, but there’s usually at least a traveler or two taking advantage of the hospitality. Eventually, there are repeat guests, even families. Chip and Frou Frou are harder to hold back those nights, but children tend to be the most fearless visitors, and it works out all right even when the occasional guest leaves with a fantastic story.

They never look for the castle, after all, but those in need seem to be able to find it every time.

The lack of a visible human staff puts some travelers off—and that’s perhaps why they rarely stay more than one night—but word spreads that the hidden castle is a fine place to stay, with a cost that’s worth its strangeness. Visitors mostly look past the furniture that seems to move itself and focus on enjoying the apparently endless feasts, impossibly soft beds, and perpetually hot tea.

Meanwhile, the Beast stays hidden on his floor of the West Wing, seldom seen by any of his guests, especially in the daylight. He hunts for his own food, most of the time, and brings back fresh meat for the kitchen staff to get creative with. And he keeps an eye on his guests, flashing claws or teeth in the darkness when some unsavory type thinks of breaking into a lone maiden’s room or attempts to make off with one of his servants.

All are welcome, save for those who threaten the castle’s quiet, precarious peace with other sorts of beastly behavior. Those villains sometimes disappear, turning up in the woods with claw marks across their bodies or frightened, crazed tales of a horned creature that shouts with a human voice. Generally, such offenders return to their villages, and the only thing anyone believes is that the magic of the castle has served them right.

The Beast may not be loved, per se, but surely appreciation, however indirect, is a kind of affection.

***

Time passes, and the abnormal becomes quotidian, the supernatural sane. No one in the castle, from its master to its forks, expects a change anymore, but at least they have a purpose.

***

Maurice flees through woods without much choice in the matter, thanks to a spooked horse and an unusually vicious pack of wolves. He finds an empty castle with a lit fire and a warm table of food—and then finds he can’t leave. Some unseen force has apparently decided he needs to recover from the attack and that awful cough, and he finds hot tea by his bedside and a bed-warmer already in the sheets.

If the occasional animalistic roar from the other end of the castle unnerves him, which it does, there is little he can do but wander and wait to get well. He worries for his daughter as he stares out locked windows, but he picks out a rose to take to her when he’s finally allowed to leave.

Belle, of course, turns out to have worried for her Papa just as much, and she bursts into the castle only to find him safe and mostly well. There’s tea for her, too, and then she learns her cup can speak.

Where Maurice and countless other visitors would be horrified, she is delighted, and asks after every enchanted object on the grounds. Each is just as delighted to meet her—and a select few start to dream again.

***

Maurice recovers in time, never having met the master of the castle that had cared for him and welcomed his daughter. Belle had asked, of course, but no one speaks of him. So they thank their unconventional hosts and set out for home—and promptly encounter the same wolves.

This time, a lucky escape has nothing to do with it; the Beast rescues them, though he’s badly injured during the fight, enough to ask for help in his encroaching delirium.

Belle, never one to leave a creature in need without aid, conveys him back to the castle, sure that he’ll get the care he needs there—only to learn upon their arrival that _this_ is the mysterious master of the house.

Unfortunately, no one in the castle can bandage him up with any particular deftness. Belle sees how she’s meant to repay the gift given to her father, and so she stays.

Maurice collects his belongings and heads to the market as intended. Belle promises to meet him at home once the Beast is well again.

Soon, she and the Beast discover something that wasn’t there before. 

***

Out for a ride in the unseasonal snow, Belle asks if there are others like him. The Beast realizes, belatedly, that she means other clawed, articulate monsters who dance and hunt wolves and read Shakespeare.

“Did you think I was born like this?” he asks, not quite knowing whether he was. He was born human in appearance, at least; of that much he is sure, and he tells her so.

It’s not the answer she expected, and it leads to more questions. He explains the curse, all of it, but doesn’t suggest it’s her job to break it, only that the enchanted inn had been an attempt to better the whole situation and how it’s nice to have actual company.

Belle, enjoying the discovery of a kindred spirit regardless of his fur and fangs, stays on. Surely his injuries need care until they are _fully_ healed.

Maurice, meanwhile, returns home to an empty house and no means of finding his way back to the castle. But his words get twisted beyond recognition in the tavern, resulting in the villagers’ rallying to the hunt.

The castle fights back against the attackers, and Belle helps, her deft fingers rigging up a series of trips and traps to waylay Gaston and the others long before they reach the West Wing. The Beast had stayed away from the battle, rightly aware that any damage he could do would only reinforce the intruders’ beliefs of him. The hunter finds him all the same.

Gaston falls to his death and the villagers are pushed out, but the last petal still breaks off the rose as the Beast lies mortally wounded. For the first time since coming to the castle, Belle screams in terror.

***

Crouched over his broken body, Belle thinks about how appearances have never aligned with what lies underneath at any point in her life—not her own, not her quirky father’s, not anyone’s in the village, really—let alone the Beast’s.

She thinks about a curse that brought countless faceless travelers safety and warmth, that protected her father when he needed protection without asking anything in return, that introduced her to the most human creature she’s ever met.

She thinks about finally being understood, of being loved not for a familial bond or for her face but for her mind, and she thinks about what it would mean to lose that understanding, of herself and of another, having only just discovered it.

Of course she had realized ages ago that she has fallen in love with this strange and shy creature, beastly or otherwise. She’s a clever woman. But though she cannot bear to lose him now, she also can’t help worrying about the others, about the magic castle, about the next sick traveler who might need a warm bed and hot tea.

Then, before she can voice that last fear, the Beast is transformed back into a man before her eyes. His sin was never in failing to love one single person but many, and in mistaking allegiance for affection. Now, though, he has built something greater than himself, meant for others’ benefit, and been loved for it. Never has he been less beastly.

The wrongness is remedied.

***

The Prince never does reconnect with the outside world—at least, not as he had once thought to. Instead, his grand, sprawling inn gains a school housed in its non-magical but certainly enchanting library. Together, he and Belle find more shelves for more books.

Chip learns to read alongside a sweet little girl who can’t stand the taste of tea, and villagers come from every direction to travel to other worlds without leaving the forest.

Belle’s laughter echoes through now-crowded halls, buoyed by her students’. When class lets out, and the sun is shining, he steals her away to explore an undiscovered portion of the flowering grounds around them. She never says no, unless some new volume has arrived, in which case he makes tea and they trade off tomes until well after sunset. And, when he trips over his newly human feet, she helps him up—but not before asking what plants he’s landed among this time.

He sends for more books.

Unthinking, one day, he gives one to a student to keep, and the child hugs him in gratitude, quick and tiny and tight, before scampering away.

His home feels, and is, more enchanted than ever.

***

The next time the Enchantress passes through, she hardly recognizes the castle, its grounds, or its people. She nods to herself with a smile. As she vanishes, a rosebush springs from the ground where she stood.

**Author's Note:**

> Fic title is from "[Out There](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxFD7Tk8Kps)," from Disney's _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_.


End file.
